R.I. House approves measure to ban public disclosure in some marijuana cases

By Katherine Gregg Journal State House Bureau

Tuesday

May 5, 2015 at 7:46 PM

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island House of Representatives - without an iota of debate - voted Tuesday to prohibit the public disclosure of the names of people charged only once or twice with with possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

The vote was 67-to-1, with Rep. Michael Marcello, D-North Scituate, casting the long dissenting vote. Asked why he voted nay on sealing the records immediately, he said: "Because it is an adjudication and I believe that court should always be public."

According to its backers, the bill seeks to “correct two conflicting provisions” in the 2012 law that decriminalized possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, making it a civil violation punishable by a $150 fine for a first or second offense within 18 months.

As it stands, the law says the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal record of any such case “shall be sealed 18 months after the payment of such fine.” But another section of state law says these records should never be made public.

Faced with these conflicting instructions, the traffic court opted to take "the more conservative approach,’’ by not releasing these records to the public, according to court spokesman Craig Berke.

Asked why, given the two options, the court had placed the records off limits, the judiciary’s lobbyist R. Kelly Sheridan said the sponsors of the decriminalization law — who include House Majority Whip John Edwards — “tell us that was their intent.”

As for full legalization, Edwards, D-Tiverton, said recently: “We are still working on it. It’s a long drawn out process ... . This is just one more step towards that end.”

A House committee held a hearing a week ago on this year's renewed push to legalize the drug.

Asked, during a recent interview, his reason for pushing full legalization of the drug, Edwards said: “We don’t want this to be a stigma.''

He cited an instance in which two carpenters in their mid-50s with whom he worked, as a project manager, were barred from work on a federal construction project on Plum Island, N.Y., because of marijuana arrests at 18 and 21 years old. It was unclear why these charges were still dogging these individuals when Rhode Island law already allows the expungement of single, non-violent offenses by first-time offenders.

Rep. Robert Jacquard, the retired Cranston police officer who sponsored the record-sealing bill up for a vote Tuesday, said legalization of marijuana is, in his mind, a step too far.

But since possession of small amounts of the illegal drug is no longer a criminal act, Jacquard said: "It just doesn't, in the eyes of members of the legislature, rise to the level of offense which needs to be out there in the public....[that] the public would have a reason to know.''

"There doesn't seem to be any public safety reasons why it should be public information. So therefore there is no underlying reason to make it public information,'' he said.

If passed by the Senate, the legislation would add to the thousands of court records unavailable for public scrutiny.

In 2014, Rhode Island's expungement laws allowed the removal from public view of the records of 11,598 crimes to which someone had admitted or been found guilty, including 2,798 felonies and 8,800 misdemeanors, where there was an admission of guilt, a no contest plea or a conviction.

In 2013, the number of expunged cases hit 13,385, including 2,076 felonies and 10,974 misdemeanors.

The list included: assault with a dangerous weapon, breaking-and-entering, embezzlement, driving to endanger-death resulting and “extortion by a public official,” according to a report the Rhode Island Judiciary provided The Providence Journal.

The public official whose 1992 “guilty plea as charged” was removed from the public domain is, of course, unnamed; there were a number of high-profile public corruption cases that year.

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